OCR Scanner

Extract Text from Images & Scans

Free online OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool — upload any image or scanned PDF and instantly extract all text. Works on photos, screenshots, handwritten notes, and scanned textbook pages in 15+ languages. Everything runs in your browser — your files never leave your device.

Last updated: April 2026  ·  Powered by Tesseract.js v5

Drop your image or PDF here or click to browse

Images: JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, WEBP, GIF

PDF: All pages will be scanned  ·  Max file size: 50MB

Options

Processing... 0%
Extracted Text
Words —
Characters —
Privacy guaranteed: OCR processing runs entirely in your browser using Tesseract.js. Your images are never uploaded to any server. When you close this tab, all data is gone.
Copyright & Fair Use: Only process documents you own or have explicit permission to use. This tool does not remove watermarks, DRM, or copyright protection. Extracting text from copyrighted material without authorisation may violate copyright law. You are solely responsible for ensuring lawful use.

How It Works

  • 1
    Upload your image or scanned document
  • 2
    Select the language of the text in your image
  • 3
    Click "Extract Text" and wait a few seconds
  • 4
    Copy or download the extracted text instantly

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Why Students Use This Free OCR Scanner

When you photograph lecture notes, textbook pages, or printed handouts, you end up with images — not editable text. Our free OCR scanner converts those images into copy-paste text in seconds, supporting over 15 languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, and German.

Unlike paid tools such as Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY FineReader, this OCR scanner runs entirely inside your browser using Tesseract.js — the same engine trusted by organisations worldwide. Your files never leave your device, there is no sign-up, and there are no watermarks on the output.

Common student uses: extracting text from scanned PDFs for assignments, converting photographed receipts for expense reports, pulling quotes from physical books for essays, and digitising printed lecture slides for revision notes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this OCR tool completely free?

Yes. The OCR Scanner on FreeStudentTools.com is 100% free with no sign-up, no watermarks, and no file size limits (up to browser memory).

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Yes. The tool uses Tesseract.js to OCR each page of a scanned PDF and extract all text, even if the PDF has no text layer.

What languages does the OCR support?

It supports 15+ languages including English, Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, and Korean.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. All OCR processing runs entirely in your browser using Tesseract.js. Your files never leave your device.

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